


Recovery Road is a drastic change from Victory Lane

by RockNoir



Category: Cars (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Humanized, Pain, but harv is only there for a small cameo, plot? what plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 12:26:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18717058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RockNoir/pseuds/RockNoir
Summary: [AU: Doc Lives]The progression of Lightning's post-crash recovery is a rocky road for all of them. Thankfully, he's got Doc by his side to help. Doc's always best at helping.





	Recovery Road is a drastic change from Victory Lane

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have a beta and it's 4:46 AM at the time of posting this, I just want to get it over and done with so I can go to bed.  
> I hope there's no typos or weird mistakes because I don't wanna look like a whole clown uploading unedited work, lol.

Doc jumps down the ladder of the  pitbox , ignoring the pain that shoots through his knees when he hits the ground below, he’s nearly stumbling as he starts to run toward the patch of turn that’s been disrupted by the kid’s rolling car. Sally’s hot on his heels, overtaking him for a second, and he can see that she’s kicked off her sandals in an attempt to make it across the field faster, behind him, he can hear the commotion of the other crew chiefs shouting for their racers to get off the track.

From the corner of his eye, he can see the team of paramedics also heading in that direction as well, and he wills himself to move faster, to get there first—but they’re faster, there’s also a lot more, and both he and Sally, as well as the rest of the crew, are stopped before they can get too close.

When he sees the car, he wishes he hadn’t come so close. It’s a crumpled mess, the there’s smoke steaming from the hood and the frame’s completely crunched.

The worst part—the kid’s still in there.

“You guys  gotta  get him  outta  there,” Doc starts, taking a  s tep forward only to be stopped by the paramedic standing before him.

“Sir, we’re--”

“He’s trapped in there!” He isn’t even aware he’s getting worked up until Fillmore places a hand on his shoulder, urging him to step back before he causes a scene. With a quick glance back, he can see everyone looks just as worried as he feels, and they’re all looking at him.

He looks away, away from them and away from the crash scene and takes a moment to compose himself. They need him right now. They need their leader.

When they pull McQueen from the wrecked car, he’s out like a light, his nose and mouth are streaming red, and the sight makes Doc sick to his stomach. He looks so far from right, and the audible reactions he can hear coming from seemingly all around only solidify that thought.

He runs to catch up with the men who’re preparing to load Lightning in to the back of an ambulance, catches the arm of one of the men, and pleads, “Tell me where you’re taking him.”

Luckily, Sally’s just behind him, taking note of the information the man spews in a hurry.

Doc doesn’t even hear him, he’s too distracted by the pair of bleary blue eyes staring right up at him, for only a split second. 

“Kid--” They don’t stay open long. Just as soon as he was awake, McQueen’s out again. Doc’s not even sure he really saw him, or anything for that matter. He looked so disoriented.

He can’t do much as they drive off, only rally up the others so Sally can relay information to them. Mack, Sarge, and Fillmore offer to stay behind for now, help with damage control and keep Rusty and Dusty out of the spotlight and away from questioning, knowing the sponsors would be hounded for information and comments as soon as they were spotted.

The rest of the team is on their way to the hospital, with full intents to sit in the lobby all night until they receive news on their racer’s condition.

There’s  enough tears being shed from just about everyone to fill a lake. The stress and tensions are high, and they’ve been placed in a private lobby to avoid drawing attention or unwanted guests. Sally hasn’t stopped crying, and Doc has to admit, if he had the energy, he’d be the same. He feels so empty, as if he’s feeling everything and nothing at once, resulting in no tears at the moment, but maybe that’s for the better—at least one of them has to be capable of communication  and looking stable .

His knees are still acing, and sitting in hard plastic chairs for hours makes his spine feel like  Jell-o , still he forces himself to sit up, clear his throat so he’ll have the others’ attention.

“There’s a hotel down the street, we passed it on the way in, maybe you all--”

“No.” Sarge cuts him off, sitting up as well and stirring Fillmore, who’d been leaning on him, staring solemnly at his shoes.

“You can’t stay here all night--”

“He’s our kid, too,” Sarge says, and the other don’t say so, but Doc can sense that they’re all on levels of agreement as they all stare at him with red, puffy eyes. “We don’t want to go anywhere.”

Doc falls silent, knowing he can’t make them do anything, but appreciating that they would be willing to sit here for however long it took until they received updates on the kid’s condition. He knew, just from the few moments he’d gotten to see  Lightning  before he was whisked away, that it was bad. Real bad.

He was no surgeon, and he was more than sure that there were doctors in this place who knew better than he did, but from his own personal experience, it didn’t seem like the kid was getting out of this hospital any time soon. Not unless his condition dropped to something a whole lot worse than what it was at now.

“Go home,” says the nurse that finally,  _ finally _ , comes to give them an update. “It’s  gonna  be a long while before you’ll be able to see him.”

No one wants to leave, despite the fact that they’re all half asleep and drained of all energy, but there’s nothing else they can do. They’ve been sitting here for  hours;  they need the rest.

“Alright,” Doc says, standing up. His voice is hoarse, he’s tired, and he feels the oncoming of a headache, “You guys team up, teams of two. Hopefully the hotel down the street  has enough open rooms. Two to a room.”

“What about you?” Mack asks, his hand slows from where he was comfortingly rubbing Sally’s back as his attention’s drawn to Doc.

“I’m  gonna  stay here for a while  l onger, incase anything changes.”

“I’m staying with you.” Mack says, and Doc almost tells him to just go, but the sad look the driver gives him immediately keeps him from telling  Mack  to do anything.

The others follow Doc’s orders to head to the nearby hotel, reminding him to call if he gets any updates. Then it’s just the two of them, sitting quietly on opposite ends of the room in equally uncomfortable chairs. Doc sits hunched over, one elbow on the arm rest as he leans his head in to his fist, his other hand arm is resting against his thigh, hand clutching an empty paper cut that had held hot coffee just twenty minutes before. Mack sits with his long legs stretches out and crossed before him, he’s leaning back a bit, arms crossed and head down, the rim of his hat covers most of his face from Doc’s view.

“I’ve known McQueen a long time,” Mack says, to break the odd, tired, silence. “He’s pulled through a lot...I think...well, maybe...I  _ hope  _ he can get through this. He’s got too much of a strong will to  _ not _ .”

Maybe it’s to console Doc, or to help himself feel better, he’s not sure, but maybe doing something other than sitting in silence can ease the tension.

“How long have you known him?” Doc asks, looking up toward Mack. Mack looks up, too, their eyes meet for a brief second, but they find that looking done was far more comfortable, and don’t hold the gaze.

“Met him some years before you guys did. I was a cargo hauler, worked for Rusty and Dusty, hauling boxes of product across the country. When I had the time, I stopped to watch a few races. Thought the kid was pretty good, became a fan of his, but he wasn’t really doing so great. I got Rusty and Dusty keeping tabs on his races and one day the just decided to ask if he wanted to race for them. He said yes, I asked if I could haul him, and we became pretty good pals after that.” Mack reaches up to adjust his hat and tiredly scratch through the beard on his chin, “Before all of that I was a logger, that wasn’t nearly as fun.”

“You certainly look the part,” Doc comments, and they share a small huff of a laugh. Mack was a big guy, tall, brawny, looked exactly like the stereotypical lumberjack, always wore flannels and vests, had a beard and unruly,  auburn , hair that always looked like it was in need of a trim.

There’s not much for them to talk about, the situation is heavier than they could imagine, but the tension finally breaks when Mack pulls a flask from the chest pocket of his shirt and offers some to Doc. They both scoot to the edge of their chairs, Doc holding out the empty paper cup while Mack held out the flask, pouring half of it in to the cup. Neither could be bothered to get all the way up.

They hold their drinks up in some kind of deep respective nod to  _ whatever  _ it is that apparently requires an upwards nod of the head, then down the drinks. It’s not enough to give them a buzz, but maybe if they imagine hard enough, they can trick themselves in to thinking they’ll feel better in twenty minutes’ time.

They don’t get answers until the next day. The others have spent the night in the hotel down the street, coming back as soon as they could, but only running on small hours of sleep. Mack slept slouched down in the chair he’d occupied the previous night. Doc hadn’t slept at all. He’s running on coffee and maybe the small minute and a half of rest his brain got when it shut down in the middle of the night—only for a moment-- before it remembered where he was and what had happened.

None of them have seen the surgeon himself, or any of the actual doctors that have apparently been working all night to get Lightning in to a stable condition.

At least, that’s what the nurse who stands before Doc  says.  A woman on the shorter side, with dark brown hair and rosy cheeks, she sounds unsettlingly optimistic for someone who heals with serious issues on a daily basis, but they can’t fault her. Someone in this place has to be optimistic.

“He’s stable now. He’s been doing good for the last 6 hours. They made sure of that, but he has extreme injuries.”

A broken right arm, a few cracked ribs, a gash on the side of his head that needed stitching, he was wearing a helmet, but it wasn’t on when the kid was dragged out of the car. Doc’s not entirely sure what happened there, but he’s sure he won’t get a definite explanation any time soon.  Not from the kid.

He’s also messed up his knee, something the nurse assured could be fixed and would heal over time, but not right away. Not without a lot of physical therapy and pain.

They’re still not allowed to see him. He’s still out of it.

“You can hang around in the waiting room if you’d like, in case there’s an update on his condition, but I would suggest just going back  home  and resting. If anything does happen, we can and will call you, or get a hold of one of you,” says the nurse, she gives them a soft, but forced smile before she leaves.

The others only look at Doc, who instructs them again to go to the hotel. He can tell none of them got much sleep last night, and waiting around here all day isn ’ t  gonna  do any of them any good.

“You should go, too,” Sally says, sitting in the seat beside him as everyone else solemnly fills out of the room. Mack goes with them, wanting to get rest in a real bed, for just a few hours. Doc doesn’t intend to get up.

“’M staying right here,” His voice is gruff, he looks and sounds like the thing he needs most is to lay down in a bed and go to sleep, but he’s stubborn.  S he knows this.

“We’re all worried about him,” Sally says, placing a hand on Doc’s shoulder. “Take care of yourself, Doc. We don’t want to have to worry about you, too.”

“Thank you, Sally.” He looks down at his shoes for a moment. “I’m still going to stay. If it comes down to it, we can do waiting shifts, two at a time. But for now, I just need more coffee.”

He gets up, stretching until his old bones pop in all the right places, then tiredly shuffles out of the small waiting room and to the main lobby at the hospital’s entrance to collect a new cup of their warm complimentary coffee. He’s lost  count  of how much he’s consumed, but he doesn’t think that’s important. The caffeine's helping him out, at this moment, it’s his best friend.

He never makes it across the lobby to the table with the coffee canister, though. A conversation he overhears at the front desk in the lobby catches his ear, takes the small sliver of attention he has left.

There’s a man, leaning over the front desk, dressed to the nines in a light gray three - piece suit. He’s wearing sunglasses, indoors, and, despite the rest of him being sharp, his dark hair’s unruly. In his hands, he’s clutching a vase full of yellow roses, being careful not to tip them and spill the water as he moves about in what appears to be some kind of minimal rage.

“Look, lady,” the man says, growing frustrated, “I get that I can’t see McQueen right now. I doubt it’d even have time if I could, I’m busy. All I’m asking is that you have these delivered to his room!”

The voice sounds familiar, way too familiar, and Doc finds himself approaching the desk instead of heading for another cup of coffee.

“ Harv ,” Doc greets lowly, coming to a stop behind man, who spins around, vase still clutched in his hand s .

“Hudson.”  Harv  says back , voice immediately taking on a cool tone. T he both of them giv e  a short,  kurt , nod in greeting. The two of them rarely met face to face. Doc can count on one hand, the in-person interactions he’s had with the agent, with room left over for this encounter as well.

He  can’t see  Harv’s  eyes behind the sunglasses, can’t read his expression. They prevent Doc from looking  Harv  in the eye , and seeing his own reflection in the lenses of the glasses . Instead, he eyes the bright yellow flowers in the vase.

“He hates those, you know.” It comes out a bit harsher than he intends, but he can’t help it. He’s never gotten along with  Harv . The man’s hardly ever there in person, and Doc’s not a fan of the way he lets money run his life. It seems like he’s always eager to capitalize on Lightning’s talents without ever actually caring about Lightning himself. His mind’s always on the money, never on the racing, and while it’s his job as an agent, it never seems to sit right with  Doc.  The  fact that Lightning never seems to mind doesn’t help either.

Harv  doesn’t turn away or back down at the hard look Doc gives him, though. He straightens up, readjusting his hold on the vase. “I know. Lightning thinks roses are too basic, unthoughtful, the go-to flower. He’s a picky drama queen. That’s exactly why I bought them.”

Then, with the  aire  and smoothness of a charming cat,  Harv  hands the vase over to Doc, adjusts his tie, and says, “Give those to the kid, yeah? When he wakes up tell him I said hey. And tell Miss Carrera I said thank you for keeping me updated. I’ve got places to be. I’ll catch you some other time, Hudson.”

He claps Doc on the shoulder as he walks past, as if the entire affair never lasted more than three seconds, and he’s out the doors, leaving Doc looking after him, perplexed.

“I’m sorry,” Doc finally says, to the desk attendant, when  Harv’s  finally left. He forgets about the coffee for now, and returns back to the waiting room to hand the flowers over to Sally. She’ll know what to do with them. 

When Lightning’s in a consistent, stable, condition, several days later, they’re allowed to see him. The group takes turns, stepping in and out of the room to see him, each coming out with a look that Doc can’t place.

It’s not until Sally steps out of the room nearly sobbing that he figures the kid must not look good.

He’s in a coma, he knew that at the very least, but he was unprepared for the battered body of Mcqueen that lay in the bed before him as the stepped in to the room. One of his arms was wrapped in a cast, he had some kind of wrap holding cause against the side of his head, part of his face was bruised and swollen, and Doc could see bandaging that disappeared under the collar of the blue hospital gown. He’s also got a tube up his nose and that alone makes Doc cringe at the mere thought of how that must feel.

At least the kid isn’t awake to feel it.

He’s not sure what to do. He doesn’t know how to take in the way Lightning looks so beat up, fragile, like someone put him in a box and shook it about roughly. He can’t tell if it’s an upgrade from the bloody battered state he was in when they pulled him from the car.

Eventually, Doc forces himself to take a seat beside the bed, not being able to take his eyes off the purple bruised flesh of McQueen’s face, the tubes that disappear up his nose. He reaches out, hand hovering above the kid’s face for a moment, not wanting to touch for fear of creating more damage, before he settles on gently putting his hand on Lightning’s shoulder, careful not to lay his hand too hard in case he jostled Lightning’s casted arm.

“Hey, kid...” He doesn’t know what to follow it up with. What is he supposed to say? Can Lightning even hear him? He thinks he recalls reading up somewhere that people in comas are supposedly able to hear what’s going on around them—something he’ d  have to read up on some more when he has the time, but for now, he won’t bother doubting it. “Scared me something awful out there, you’ve got us all worried.”

He can’t stand to look at the kid’s face anymore, so he diverts his attention to the machines behind the headboard, the IV drip, the window, anything that isn’t Lightning. He can’t shake the heaviness that falls on his shoulders. His vision blurs, maybe because he’s tired, maybe because he doesn’t want to be going through this, either way, he’s glad he’s alone. Just him and the kid.

Lightning’s stable, they say, just unconscious. He’s doing better than he was when they brought him in, days ago, but if this is considered better, how bad was he before? He’s a lot better than they’d assumed, he could have a quick recovery, he’s improving. Doc may not be a surgeon, but he’s still a doctor, he knows that they all mean, for the most part,  _ ‘at the very least, he’s not dead _ .’

Sitting in silence with nothing to fill the time only makes him feel more anxious, and he can only manage to do a small bit of poking around the internet before his cellphone dies. He reads through a few articles and accounts of people who had been in comas, many of them confirming that they could hear what was going on around them. One man even claimed that, although he was afraid and had no idea what was going on, he found comfort in the familiarity of his friends’ and family’s voices, even when they weren’t speaking to him directly.

But Doc has nothing to say. He doesn’t like small talk, and he was hardly ever the one to insinuate silence-filling conversation. That was always the kid’s job.

He thinks for a moment, mulling over options in his mind until he finally settles on something.

In the glove compartment of his car, he had a book.

So  he goes, in a state of disorient, bleary and bloodshot eyes, and  retrieves  the book.

_ Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas _ , one of many books Lightning had gifted him over the years, claiming that they were ‘old man books’, and ‘books old men probably like to read’. He suspects the kid just selected books that seemed the least interesting and used them as means to tease Doc about age.

He’s never read it before, it being a more recent gift,  and directly  after receiving it, he promptly stored it in the glove box and forgot about, but now it was his only way to pass the time. And to possibly f i l l  the unsettling silence.

Maybe the kid would find comfort in this. At least, Doc hoped he would. He hates the thought of Lightning possibly being lost in his own head, unable to wake, with only unfamiliar silence to keep him company.  How would the kid ever know how much time he spends beside the hospital bed if he never heard him there?

The synopsis on the back doesn’t seem appealing to him,  about heavy drug abuse and a desert road trip,  but it doesn’t matter. Doc opens the book, creasing the new, glossy, paperback cover right beside the spine, and begins to read, “ _ We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive…” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas.” _

Doc spends  several hours of every  day by Lightning’s bedside for the next fortnight, the others shuffle in and out, but out of the lot of them, it’s Doc who bests them all. Even Sally, but only because she’s busy, as Lightning’s lawyer, keeping things under wraps. When she’s not spending time by Lightning’s side in the hospital, she’s on the phone with his agent, his sponsors, or anyone else who gets in touch with her, looking for info, permissions, and whatever else they may need for publications and news coverage. Stuff she does not want to deal with ,  and lets them know so straight  and  to the point.  It doesn’t stop the calls from coming in, or the misinformation from being published, or the mess she and the others are constantly working to get cleaned up.

She sheds a lot of tears, no shame at all, and Doc thinks that makes her the boldest of them all.

The hospital staff are pretty much acquainted with Doc. He’s there every day, and today is no different. 

He arrives in the room with his usual cup of a coffee, and this time, he’s got a newspaper tucked between his elbow and his torso. He wastes no time dragging the chair up beside the bed, setting his coffee on the small beside table and unrolling the newspaper.

“You’re still in all the papers, kid.” Doc skims the page for the paragraph he’s looking for. “They haven’t shut up about you for the last two weeks.” Not to mention several online media outlets and social media pages constantly trying to fill their sites with information. “It’s kind of ridiculous, kiddo. Sally won’t let them get any new information on you, they’ve all resorted to recycling old info or bringing up your past accomplishments.”

Lightning’s still out of it,  with all the responsiveness of a rock.

“They’re  gonna  have a field day when you wake up...” He looks over the newspaper again, stopping when he comes across the image at the bottom of the page. There’s a picture of himself, a whole decade younger, sitting on the floor of his  pitbox , legs dangling over the ladder steps that led up to said box. He’s grinning, looking down with a lawful good gaze of pride. Just below him, at ground level, was Lightning, holding up his very first piston cup. It was one of hundreds of photos taken that weekend, and Doc finds himself glancing between the picture printed on the paper in his hands, and the expressionless, bruised and swollen, face of the kid laying in the bed before him.

He’d give anything to see that kid’s stupid grin again. To see any kind of expression. The kid doesn’t emote. He doesn’t even look like he’s sleeping. It’s a look Doc can’t place, and can’t bear to look at any longer. He looks away, at the machines along the wall, but he can’t read any of them through the blur of unshed tears in his eyes.

The thought of this being the new norm stirs something unsettlingly deep inside of him.

He sets the paper down on the bed, frowning. His hand rests beside Lightning’s arm, the one that isn’t wrapped up in a cast. Gingerly, he takes the kid’s hand in his own, trying his best to ignore the way it feels limp and just little cold.

“You can’t stay asleep forever, kid. I thought you grew  outta  that ‘sleep all day’ phase ten years ago, and I know damn well, out of all the things I taught you, I  _ never  _ taught you to be lazy,” It’s a lighthearted tease, but Doc knows he can’t trick himself in to suddenly feeling better, especially not with the heaviness and stress suddenly feeling like it’s going to suffocate him. “The biggest opp o rtunity for you to be in the spotlight, and you’re completely missing it. I’m surprised your ego alone hasn’t kicked you awake at the chance to be in front of cameras again.” 

He gives Lightning’s hand a gentle squeeze, “You got the whole world waiting for you to wake up, drama queen. Don’t hesitate to get back to us.”

He forgets, for a moment, that there’s a possibility the kid can hear him, as he sniffles softly. He can’t say anything else, knowing it’ll only come out as some kind of strained noise that could resemble a sob. It’s not fair that this kid has to lay here, unconscious, battered and bruised. It’s not fair that the kid’s lost all his friends in the field to a sudden change that was out of his control. It’s not fair, the way life movies, and Doc feels pretty helpless. Helpless and unsettled that things have gotten so stressfully  _ bad  _ that he’s to the point of shedding tears.

“ _ Don’t cry, Doc _ .”

He nearly gives himself whiplash with how hard he snaps his head up. It wasn’t anytime soon that he expected to be looking in to those bright blue eyes.

“Boy,” he uses the hand that isn’t holding Lightning’s to rub the wetness off his face, “You really are one  _ hell  _ of a drama queen.”

It takes a while for Lightning to really wake up. He’s exhausted, in pain most of the time, and the medications he’s on have him in and out of  sleep.  Most  of the time, when Doc and the others visit, he’s asleep.

It doesn’t stop them from spending time with him.

It doesn’t stop Sally from telling his how much she loves him. It doesn’t stop Mater from telling him all the plans he’s got laid out for when Lightning’s all better. It doesn’t stop Flo from stroking his hair and giving him a gentle kiss on the forehead while promising to be back to visit him again later.

He’s awake for all of 15 minutes when Doc sees him. He’s woken from his sleep, bleary and confused, but just awake enough to motion to the vase of vivid yellow roses that sit over on the table with his non-injured arm.

“He knows I hate those,” Lightning rasps out, though the motion only makes his entire body ache, and he’s forced to settle back down in to the bed. He wants to smile, wants to wheeze out a small laugh at the antics of his long time agent and friend, wants to read the card that’s taped to the vase, that he can almost guarantee reads something along the lines of ‘get better, you little shit’, in the joking manner that Harv always sends any gift in.

But everything hurts. His head is spinning. He lays back and tosses his good arm over his eyes to block out the light in hopes of lessening the pounding in his skull.  It doesn’t, but at the very least, it hides the large tears that stream down his temples and soak in to his messy hair.

Everything hurts.

And, still, he has no idea exactly what happened.

“I heard you,” Lightning says, later—days later--when he’s caught up to date on his own situation, the fact that he’s been asleep for weeks, that he wrecked so badly he doesn’t even remember it happening, that he can’t even stand up yet because he’s got all sorts of injuries.  When he’s actually able to be awake for more than 15 minutes without being in tears or wishing he were dead—if only to put him out of his own painful misery. He’s still got a long way to go, but at least its not at its worst anymore.

He hasn’t said much since he woke, other than telling anyone who asked that everything hurt. He was exhausted, and even if he wanted to, he couldn’t have a full conversation. He could only get out a few words at a time, voice gruff and grovel - y. His head always hurt, and the bruises on his face , although mostly healed  up,  made  it painful to talk, not to mention that being completely silent for weeks seemed to make his vocal cords rusty.

“What do you mean?” Doc asks, looking up from the new book he’s reading, something he’d picked up at a local store, about planes. Not his forte, but mechanics are  mech an ics .

“I could...” Lightning pauses to take a breath, nose scrunching up at the phantom feeling of the now absent tube that had been up his nostrils not too long before, “hear you. Reading.”

Doc lowers his book, looking over at the kid. “What else did you hear?”

“Heard Sally,” He says,  brow  furrowing in concentration as he tries to recall what he could hear, and what he could remember, “She cried a lot. I heard Flo tell me to get better. I heard Sarge an’ Fillmore.”

Ha can’t remember exactly what they’d all said, he couldn’t exactly pay attention, but he knew their voices all the same. Trying to remember anything else makes his brain hurt, and he already feels dizzy and not  all  there, so instead he settles back in to the pillows that are being used to prop him up, awkwardly worms his torso underneath the blankets, and closes his eyes.

“You okay, kid?” He hears Doc ask, and he only nods slowly, tiredly, doesn’t bother to open his eyes.

“‘M  goin ’ t’ bed,” he grumbles lowly, rests his casted arm on his own chest, and allows himself to fall asleep.

A few days later, when Doc visits him, he brings a chessboard. The kid knows enough about the game to play absentmindedly, and it’s a good way to get him using the few muscles he can move at the moment. Their conversations are mostly one sided, though this time it’s Doc who fills the silence. Lightning doesn’t speak much, which is beyond out of character for him, but Doc understands. He’s tired, he’s hurting, but he tries when he can. Occasionally, he tells Doc as much as he can about his uneventful mornings with the hospital staff, but the kid never leaves the room, there’s only so much to talk about.

“Next week, Nurse Anne said I could start  walkin ’ again.” There’s a sma ll  bit of hope in Lightning’s voice when he says that.  “ Tired of this bed.”

Doc knows the few times they’d had to move Lightning from one place to the other, they’d used a wheel chair , but he’d rarely left the room. The lack of activity is slowly driving him insane.  He could stand on his own for just a short moment, could even manage to stand up long enough to brush his teeth at the sink if he steadied himself against the counter.   Very minimal things, however, p rogress is progress, no matter how small.

“Walking?” Doc moves his chess piece along the board, glancing up at  Lightning  to  signal  that it was his turn.

“My leg should be good enough to start walking by then, but she said I’ll need to do a whole lotta stretches and I’ll have to practice walking again.” Lightning looks at the pieces, hand hovering over the board as he decides which piece to move. “I even get a cool walker, like an old person.”

“Well, you  _ are  _ getting older,” Doc jokes.

“I am not  _ that  _ old.  _ Thirty-five is not old _ .”

“You’ll be Thirty-six in a couple of months.”

“ _ Check-mate _ .” Lightning grins up at Doc. The older man looks down in surprise at the board, confirming that the kid really had bested him. When he looks back up, Lightning’s still grinning.

 It’s the first real smile he’s gotten from the kid since before the crash.

“Haven’t seen you smile that hard in weeks, kiddo.” He says as he clears the board to put it away. This was their third game in a row. Any more and it won’t be as entertaining.

“Take a picture, Doc. It’ll last longer.”

And, well, maybe pulling out his phone to snap a picture and  _ make the moment last _  isn’t such a bad idea.

The walker hardly makes him look cool, it’s clunky, annoying to push along, and Lightning’s more than grateful when he gets to upgrade to a pair of metallic red crutches. He’s been discharged from the hospital, more than happy to finally be out of the place. When he was able to walk, they allowed him to push the walker around the halls of the small hospital, if only to attempt to soothe his restlessness. He nearly whoops and hollers with glee down the hall as Sally pushes his wheelchair (only used because of hospital policy) to the entrance of the hospital. She hands him his crutches, that have been decorated with glittery stickers in the shape of flames, and he hauls himself up quickly, nearly tossing himself over as he attempts to jam them under his arms just as fast. Luckily, Doc’s there to steady him.

 Along with him goes a long list of instructions on taking care of his still healing injuries, a referral to a physical therapist, and a few prescriptions for lower doses of pain medications. Over time, they’d weaned him from the heavy pain medications. Instead of knocking him out cold so he couldn’t feel a thing, they’d only lessen the pain, make it manageable.

All of the paperwork went immediately to Doc—the smart choice, seeing as Lightning would most likely toss the papers aside in favor of overworking himself and doing everything in his own manner, because no one, not even himself, could tell him no.

Lightning’s just eager to get home and see the others, who had made their way back home some time ago. They couldn’t stay in that hotel forever. 

He can’t seem to sit still in the passenger’s seat of Sally’s car, and Doc can’t help but think, as he climbs in to his own car, that she’s got a long drive ahead of her.

“This is  gonna  be so cool,” Lightning say, between yawns.

They’ve made it back to Arizona late at night, tired is beyond an understatement for the three of them.

“What’s  gonna  be cool?” Doc asks, unlocking the door of his small house, located just behind his clinic. They’ve decided Lightning is going to stay with Doc for couple of weeks. Doc’s got a small, one-story- house. Lightning and Sally’s shared house was raised, with more than a few steps leading up to the front door, and their bedroom was upstairs. Climbing so many steps each day with crutches was not something Lightning wanted to handle just yet. Not with a broken arm, a brace on his leg, and reliance on crutches to keep him upright while walking.

“It’s  gonna  be like a sleepover, but for more than just one night,” Lightning responds as he slowly hobbles his way through the door after Doc, crutches and all.

“Uh huh,” Doc’s only half paying attention. He hasn’t been in his own home in over a month, he’s already thinking about what he’s got to clear from his fridge and pantry, what needs to be dusted, and anything else that comes with keeping a house tidy on the daily.

“Just you and me hanging out all day.”

“Sure, sounds good,” when Doc finally turns around to look at him, he notes that the kid looks as tired and drained as he feels. “You can take the bed. It’s got more than enough space for you to stretch your leg out.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll sleep on the sofa.” 

“The sofa?”

“Yeah.” Doc doesn’t give him room for argument, leading the way to the bedroom, Lightning limping after him. Doc takes his crutches to prop them against the wall beside the bed while Lightning awkwardly worms his way under the covers.

Doc wakes up only two hours later, to the clacking sound of Lightning’s clutches against the floor, and when he finally comes out of the deep, bleary, sleep-state, he sees the kid standing not too far from the sofa, leaning on his crutches and nervously rocking side to side.

“The hell, kid? What’re you  doin ’ up?” Doc sits up, blinking a few times to get adjusted to the light coming from the nearby table lamp he forgot to shut off.

“I can’t sleep.” Lightning says, he taps the nail of one of his fingers against a crutch, making a small pinging noise. “I thought I was tired, I am tired, but I can’t get comfortable. It’s...too  _ quiet _ . In the hospital, there was always some kind of background noise. The machines, or people in the hallway, or the nurses checking up on me. It’s too quiet and I can’t sleep.”

Doc tiredly rubs a hand down his face, shaking his head.

“You’ll be fine, kiddo. Just go lay down.”

He’s so tired, he falls back asleep almost as soon as he lays back down. The last thing he hears is McQueen shuffling away, crutches clacking with every step.

Lightning looks absolutely miserable the following morning, like he hasn’t slept comfortably in weeks, which he hasn’t. While he was in the hospital, all he dreamed of was leaving, getting to sleep in his own bed without being interrupted every few hours by nurses and a doctor for tests or to just be checked up on. And now that he’s home, he can’t rest with the unnerving quiet.

He’s also in a negative mood.

The lack of sleep and aches and pains do nothing to lighten him up. The terrible mood lasts for days.

Doc can only watch, unsettled, when the kid struggles with the most mundane tasks.

“I don’t need help,” Lightning swears, as he wards away any hands that make to help him when he stumbles.

“I’ve got it,” he promises, as he struggles to use his uncoordinated left hand in place of his dominant right.

“I’m fine,” he says, through gritted teeth, while running through his therapy stretches, “it just hurts sometimes.”

And Doc  _ knows _ , first hand, that it will continue to hurt for a very long time. 

The cast comes off before the brace. Lightning’s beyond relived at the ability to use both his hands (which he constantly states that he needs both hands to drive, and that he’s just another step closer to getting back on the track). When the leg brace comes off, Lightning gains a new nickname.  _ Bambi _ . Because of the way he awkwardly bumbles about, unused to the absence of the brace and crutches.

“Like a newborn fawn,” Sheriff comments, watching as Lightning cautiously takes a few steps. His leg doesn’t feel as strong as it was before he injured it, but they’re getting there.

It still takes time for  Lightning  to come around. He’s not the same as before—of course he isn’t, some things change you forever. But he’s ready.

Different. But ready.

“This is  gonna  be my best season yet,” Lightning says, standing beside Doc.

The whole town has gathered to see Lightning and Mack off the  the  new training center, early in the morning.

“Are you nervous, kid?” The air is cold, and Doc looks off toward the rising sun in the distance, longing for the warmer spring days to arrive.

“Only a little,” Lightning admits. “Never trained in a center before, only on dirt. With you.”

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine. Always were a smart kid when it came to anything racing.”

Mack calls for Lightning to hurry up, says that they’ve got to get going. They’ve got a long ride ahead of them and the sooner they arrive, the better. The more training time they can fit in.

“You’ll be there? In Florida?” Lightning asks, looking over to Doc.

“I’ll meet you there, kid. Now go, you’ve got a race to train for.”

Lightning grind, standing up taller.

When he walks off, there’s a new skip in his step. A new stride that Doc’s never seen in him before.

He’s different, but he’s ready, and he’s got a race to win.

**Author's Note:**

> It's a common rumor that people in comas can hear your voice if you talk to them, and that talking to them can help them "wake up". Although it's not 100% true, according to a thread on r/AskReddit, people who have been in comas claimed that they were able to hear what was happening around them and recall hearing the voices of friends/family.
> 
> Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a satirical book about a man and his attorney taking a road trip to Las Vegas to cover a race while abusing the hell out of a bunch of drugs and having absurd trips. There's also a movie adaptation of this book. It has no real significance to this fic, I just happened to have a tab open on said book at the time of writing this and was the first book to come to mind when writing.
> 
> Harv only has 3 "appearances" in the World of Cars: both scenes in the first Cars film where he calls lightning, and once in the book Struck By Lightning, where he calls Lightning to tell him the upcoming race is cancelled. Never once does he make a physical appearance.
> 
> In Struck by Lightning, it's said that Mack was a driver for Rust-eze, and also a fan of Lightning McQueen. One night after a race, Mack, Rusty, and Dusty asked Lightning if he'd like to race for Rust-eze and he agreed, and Mack became his hauler. That's the general basis of their relationship in this fic, albeit a bit altered.
> 
> Doc doesn't go to the racing center with Lightning at the end of this fic, because he feels like this is something Lightning has to do on his own. Doc knows dirt tracks and physical one-on-one training. He doesn't think he'd be much use in a center full of all kinds of training gadgets and simulators. Also, the events of cars 3 are intended to take place right after this fic, when Doc isnt present.
> 
> The rest is up to your imagination.


End file.
